Declaring the need to expand educational opportunity, Gov. Jerry Brown announced Saturday that he has signed legislation making illegal immigrants eligible to receive state financial aid to attend California universities and community colleges.

Brown said he signed the California Dream Act because it makes sense to allow high-achieving students access to college financial aid.

“Going to college is a dream that promises intellectual excitement and creative thinking,” Brown said in a statement. “The Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us.”

New York State is poised to pass a legislative agenda that focuses on granting illegal immigrants access to financial assistance for public universities, a step that California took a few days ago. John King Jr., the state’s education commissioner to the Board of Regents, tells the Times that, “It’s about making sure that students are able to fulfill their aspirations after their graduate from high school.” New York allows undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition, but the move is part of a larger strategy to lobby Congress to pass a version of the Dream Act, which would give students who completed two years of college or military service a path to citizenship.

So which is it? The boss says they are secure, POTUS says they’re secure.

The Duke University article on the subject goes into more detail about how her department works in the context of day-to-day operations:

The department operates in an “evolving threat environment” and seeks to “maximize our ability to minimize risk,” she said. The paradigm for terrorism has changed, from a complex conspiracy created abroad and coming here, to a growing threat from homegrown, “lone wolf” actors. She pointed to the Fort Hood shooting and the bomb planted along a parade route in Spokane, Wash., as examples of domestic terrorism.

“Homeland security is really hometown security,” and is a shared responsibility, she said.

The article also quoted Janet Napolitano on her response to a question about the DREAM Act:

During a question-and-answer session, an audience member identified herself as “an undocumented dreamer,” while her companion asked if President Obama would enact Dream Act provisions via executive order.

“The president will not do it through executive fiat. Only Congress can address this,” Napolitano said, but she stressed the importance of Obama’s support for the reform, which until recently had bipartisan support.

The Secure Fence Act defined operational control as “the prevention of all unlawful U.S. entries, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism and other contraband.”

To do that, the U.S. Border Patrol has been doubled in size (to around 20,000 agents) under a build-up begun in the administration of George W. Bush and continued under Obama, who won the presidency partly thanks to Latino voters who believed his campaign pledge that he would push through “comprehensive immigration reform” within one year of taking office.

That reform is meant to tackle all aspects of the system, from complicated entry visa regulations to the presence of an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants, the majority Mexicans, already in the country. Once in office, he made little effort to fulfill his promise but his administration steadily stepped up the pace of deportations. They reached a record 400,000 in the fiscal year that ended in September.

The irony of so much emphasis on deporting illegal immigrants under a president who promised so much more has not escaped the Latino community and groups supporting a balanced approach to the complex problem. Joanne Lin of the American Civil Liberties Union noted that the record deportations came at a time when “illegal immigration rates have plummeted, the undocumented population has decreased substantially and violent crime rates are at their lowest in 40 years.”

Violent crime across the United States has been dropping every year since 2006, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Does that hold true for the border region the generals’ report describes as a war zone under assault from Mexican gangs?

As always stated in our report reviews, an essential component of the immigration reform dialogue is information gathering.

Here’s another DHS report, this time on the subject of Permanent Residents, which are usually individuals who reside here via a “green card”. Even though it came out some time ago, it will likely be used as a reference point for politicians in the upcoming immigration reform debate.

A Permanent Resident is specifically defined in the document as follows”

“A legal permanent resident (LPR) or “green card” recipient is defined by immigration law as a person who has been granted lawful permanent residence in the United States. Permanent resident status confers certain rights and responsibilities. For example, LPRs may live and work permanently anywhere in the United States, own property, and attend public schools, colleges, and universities. They may also join certain branches of the Armed Forces, and apply to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain eligibility requirements. This Office of Immigration Statistics Annual Flow Report presents information obtained from applications for LPR status on the number and characteristics of persons who became LPRs in the United States during 2009.”

The introduction by Mr. Monger mentions the basics:

“In 2009, a total of 1,130,818 persons became LPRs of the United States (see Table 1 and Figure 1). The majority of new LPRs (59 percent) already lived in the United States when they were granted lawful permanent residence. Nearly two-thirds were granted permanent resident status based on a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident of the United States. The leading countries of birth of new LPRs were Mexico (15 percent), China (6 percent), and the Philippines (5 percent).”

And some of the excerpts are as follows:

Mr. Monger continues, with some information on the newest trends:

“Legal immigration increased 2.1 percent from 1,107,126 in 2008 to 1,130,818 in 2009 (see Table 1). LPR adjustments of status increased 4.2 percent from 640,568 in 2008 to 667,776 in 2009. Adjustments of status in 2009 were driven by a decrease in applications pending a decision rather than an increasing number of applications received during 2009. Fifty-nine percent of new LPRs in 2009 were adjustments of status and 41 percent were new
arrivals (see Table 1).”

He continues, by outlining “Region and Country of birth”:

“The leading regions of birth of persons becoming LPRs in 2009 were Asia (37 percent) and North America (33 percent) (see Table 3). Together, Asia and North America accounted for approximately 70 percent of the LPR flow each year from 2007 to 2009. In 2009, 15 percent of all persons becoming LPRs were born in Mexico. The second leading country of birth was China (5.7 percent), followed by the Philippines (5.3 percent), India (5.1 percent), and the Dominican Republic (4.4 percent). These five countries accounted for 35 percent of all new LPRs in 2009.”

Mr. Monger then summarizes the stats on State and Metro-area of residence:

“California was the state of residence of one-fifth (20 percent) of persons gaining LPR status in 2009 (see Table 4). Other leading states of residence included New York (13 percent), Florida (11 percent), Texas (8.4 percent), and New Jersey (5.2 percent). These five states represented the residence of 58 percent of new LPRs in 2009. The leading metropolitan areas of residence for new LPRs in 2009 were New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA (17 percent) and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA (8.6 percent) (see Table 5). Other prominent locations included Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, and Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI. These five metropolitan areas accounted for the residence of 40 percent of new LPRs in 2009.”

You can download the the very insightful and well-organized report here.

“In summary, DHS estimates that the unauthorized immigrant population living in the United States decreased to 10.8 million in January 2009 from 11.6 million in January 2008. Between 2000 and 2009, the unauthorized population grew by 27 percent. Of all unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2009, 63 percent entered before 2000, and 62 percent were from Mexico.”

With a notation on the resulting trends:

“Between January 2008 and January 2009, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States decreased seven percent from 11.6 million to 10.8 million (see Figure 1). Between 2000 and 2007, the unauthorized population grew by 3.3 million from 8.5 million to 11.8 million. The number of unauthorized residents declined by 1.0 million between 2007 and 2009, coincident with the U.S. economic downturn. The overall annual average increase in the unauthorized population during the 2000-2009 period was 250,000.”

State-by-State numbers are outlined in the paper as follows:

“California remained the leading state of residence of the unauthorized immigrant population in 2009, with 2.6 million (see Table 4 and Appendix 2). The next leading state, Texas, had 1.7 million unauthorized residents, followed by Florida with 720,000,

New York with 550,000, and Illinois with 540,000. California’s share of the national total was 24 percent in 2009 compared to 30 percent in 2000. The greatest percentage increases in the unauthorized population between 2000 and 2009 occurred in Georgia (115 percent), Nevada (55 percent), and Texas (54 percent).”

Operation RAPID stand for “Re-enter, Arrest, Prosecute, Incarcerate, Deport” and targets scofflaws who breach our laws and then return to engage in even more crimes.

It appears an efficient and well-managed federal-level effort is underway, one that’s making amazing strides with each passing day. In our opinion, this is concrete action of the best kind.

It also compliments pending immigration reform dialogue about to take place in the US Senate and House of Representatives and shows the enforcement issue is not just about “illegal workers”.

It’s probably the most interesting news in the entire immigration paradigm right now, because there just no contention. These are criminals. They were removed. They came back against all orders to stay out. They were targeted, located, and captured. They deserve what they get and then some.

Does this portend genuine immigration reform? We think such activity anticipates changes in the laws and structures of various agencies down the road. It’s well-timed and has unquestioned support up and down the line.

If the federal agencies working on these operations can benefit from supportive congressional changes that follow up their efforts, it really would signal that both the legislative and judicial branches are both on the same page. This is a welcome scenario no matter what country you are referring to and shows that playing politics is useless, -getting out there and doing something, that’s what matters.

Here are some of the quotes in the press release made by federal officials:

“This enforcement action underscores ICE’s commitment to strategic, sensible immigration enforcement that enhances public safety,” said ICE Director John Morton. “ICE will continue to target, arrest, and remove those who come to this country to pursue a life of crime rather than the American dream.”

“These arrests vividly show how cooperation among law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels produces positive results,” said Lenny DePaul, Commanding Officer, U.S. Marshals Service’s New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force “We’ve arrested 51 previously deported criminal aliens who will now have to face justice on the crimes they’ve committed, and for that, our streets are safer.”

Indeed, and a job well done! It’s our opinion that any future immigration reform must undoubtedly enhance these operations and refrain from diminishing them on the grounds they benefit us all and work using existing laws, regulations and agencies.

Here are some more details from the ICE article:

“This week’s special enforcement action was a joint initiative between the ICE National Fugitive Operations Program (NFOP) and the ICE Criminal Alien Program’s Violent Criminal Alien Section (VCAS). The NFOP is responsible for locating, arresting and removing at-large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives – aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation handed down by the nation’s immigration courts. VCAS screens recidivist criminal aliens encountered to deter and reduce future recidivism rates of violent criminal aliens by seeking criminal prosecution. In coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the VCAS prioritizes federal criminal prosecution of egregious recidivist criminal aliens for felony violations. Illegal re-entry after deportation is currently the most prosecuted federal offense nationwide.”

Check out the ICE website, there are quite a few articles of note on it and in our opinion it’s really moving along at a brisk pace. New information is published daily, and you will likely find more useful information there as it’s at the center of the action.

If you are interested in playing your part, you can always volunteer information you might have by calling 1-866-DHS-2-ICE. This isn’t about jailing some hungry worker who made a mistake and didn’t follow the rules.

Additionally, if you feel so inclined, you can always call your congressional representatives as well and express your support of operations such as these. They go a long way toward protecting us all and you can consider it one area where there’s solid proof of your tax dollars being used wisely.

The successful operation resulted in four arrests at local multi-vendor bazaars including Vikon Village Flea Market and the Garland Plaza Bazaar both in Garland and the Garibaldi Mercado Bazaar and the Plaza Latina Bazaar both in Dallas. The suspects — Kiros Wolde Selassie, Rossy Ruiz, Rosalba Villaverde-Acevedo and Yazmin Hinojosa — were all operating “ID stores” at these bazaars, where they were making counterfeit identification documents and selling them to customers. Production of a counterfeit Texas identification card is a violation of Texas Penal Code 37.10, Tampering with a Government Document which is a second degree felony with a punishment range of two to 20 years in prison.

That said, the function of the DFFTF’s is an excellent enforcement option that can lend real protection to areas afflicted with immigration violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s influence can be felt in just about any district or region that feels the need. All law enforcement or judiciary members have to do is initiate contact and being the process of coordination.

Currently ICE maintains such tasks forces in the following areas:

Atlanta

Baltimore

Boston

Chicago

Dallas

Denver

Detroit

Houston

Los Angeles

Miami

New York

Newark

Philadelphia

Saint Paul

San Francisco

San Juan

Tampa/Orlando

Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia

The politics aside, one has to surmise that it’s probably a lost more cost-effective than most government programs, and really tackles a serious problem in the US.

Other countries such as India, Thailand and France have similar infrastructures but they often can be corrupted or neutralized by media interference.

It’s highly unlikely in the current economic climate that corruption could ever tarnish this type of work done by local and federal authorities.

Our blog will keep you updated in specific cases every time the DBFTF’s take action as we feel it’s a critical bit of accomplished business in this area of interest. There’s much work to be done on Immigration Reform in 2010 and 2011, let’s hope for the best for everyone who deserves the best, not just a select few who break the rules and ruin it for many.

President Obama’s senior staff is reaching out to Republicans before the next congressional session begins in January, in an effort to secure support for the DREAM Act.

The proposed DREAM Act prescribes a mix of civil fines, educational requirements, and military duty as a way to transition into official US citizenship those under the age of 35 designated under “illegal” immigration status.

This allows the “enforcement” types their due, and balances with the very real need politicians have, to “do something positive” about the 2 million or so illegal immigrants that this bill is aimed at.

It’s also a way for the left and right wing to make sure they don’t offend the powerful Hispanic and Latino voting blocs that can make or break them in places like Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and even New York.

Does anyone reeeeeally think the Democrats are going to try another “risky” move in the name of Immigration Reform and fuel the “Tea Party” conservatives to a landslide victory in the 2012 Presidential Election?

And, whoever said the DREAM Act was immigration reform anyways? Does it touch on the issues of Temporary Workers, Permanent Residence (a.k.a. Green Card), Family-based immigration? Nope. How handy.

Democratic strategists also see the bill as a potential litmus test for Republican lawmakers on immigration reform well in advance of the 2012 election. In the recent midterm election, exit polls showed that Latino voters turned out in increased numbers for Democratic Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada after Republican opponent Sharron Angle riled the Latino community with political ads that showed images of menacing, tattooed Latinos.

Not much focus is left for Immigration Reform. See how many distractions there are? LOL.

So OK, even with Sarah Palin coasting on new found political windfalls of her peers winning big, her daughter dancing it up, Harry Reid is no clown. This is the issue on his plate and he’s got to hit a home run.

Nonetheless, -Reid is down with quite a few Republicans -much more than anyone publicly knows or understands. Former Real Estate Commissioner of Nevada hangs with him all the time. And she’s ultra-right wing as they get. Part of the whole “Republicans For Harry Reid” movement that probably had more to do with him beating Sharron Angle than Sharron Angle’s mistakes.

Remember, Nevada is a “Swing State” now. Think any intelligent Nevadan politico is going to give up the Senate Majority Leader position? It’s far too important for the State to let Conservative Republican ideals get in the way.

This is one of the few areas where the Tea Party kids might eventually get wise, mostly by staying quiet and letting the traditional Republicans work their magic with Harry, THEN step in later with the sledgehammer. We’ll see how it goes after Thanksgiving.

Suffice to say, real immigration reforms covering all aspects of our nation’s current laws regarding the subject, are unlikely, -I don’t give the DREAM Act much of a chance either, but if it does pass, you can look to Harry Reid lasting through the Presidency of Sarah Palin without encountering any real issues, it’ll be a smooth ride. For him.

With the Tea Party on the scene in January for this issue, there’s probably more than one republican politician who’s gonna be thinking “dang it’s getting downright bi-polar up in here“. This song can help, wait for the chorus.

Check this out, and definitely read the full article. It covers an interview between Bush and Limbaugh. That’s like Darth Vader and Emporer Palpatine catching up. Or if you are their fan, it’s like Batman visiting Robin for tea. Hey that’s a good pun LOL.

Long before right-wing pundits were ludicrously attacking Democrats’ attempt to pass the DREAM Act as “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, they were lambasting former President Bush’s attempt to enact comprehensive immigration reform with the same “amnesty” smear. In fact, a study by the nonpartisan Project for Excellence in Journalism released in 2007 found that “[o]pposition from key talk radio and cable TV hosts helped kill the immigration bill in Congress.”

Does this show that the people who follow the Republican party might not even really be viewed as peers by the actual politicians? There is indeed a gap in the current political stances of the Tea Party and the Republican Party. This underlines it further. Basically you’ve got one set of folks being even more zealous than the original party.

The article also notes:

In 2005, Limbaugh “spent months denouncing the proposed legislation” as “amnesty” or even “shamnesty,” and said Bush’s emphasis on reform over border security threatened “our sovereignty.” “The bottom line — you know it and I know it — is they want this amnesty,” Limbaugh explained. In early 2007, he warned Republicans that pushing immigration reform would lead to “the marginalization, if not the destruction, of the Republican Party.” He also said that “beating back [the] amnesty bill will be great for [the] conservative movement.”

As I said before, check out the article, it’s got some good links. I actually like this blog and am going to follow it for a while, it seems like it’s well put together and the topics are of deeper interest than what I’m used to seeing on the net. I like the color-coded “what we are about”, interesting little widget they should make ‘link-able’ because if you think about it, you could really do a lot of interesting ‘aggregation’ of news and political thought.

After the Republican sweep in their district and a fairly contentious race to begin with, this article in Miami Herald by Alfonso Chardy of the El Nuevo Herald goes into detail on the current mood as the dust settles. That mood translates to some fireworks down the road for immigration reform as fear of a Republican outlash builds. Everyone knows such an outlash would be in the form of some kind of punitive “crackdown on illegals”. The article notes:

Fear is spreading among many day laborers in South Florida after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, a move immigration reform activists say will make it more difficult — if not impossible — to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.

But some activists who support legalization said Wednesday that separate immigration reform components could pass in the lame-duck Congress such as the DREAM Act, a bill that would give green cards to undocumented young students brought to the United States as babies or toddlers by their parents.

Suffice to day, check out the full article and take a look into the Miami papers in general. All throughout the US, the subject of “illegal immigration” is coming to a head in the form of intense debates regarding both “enforcement” and “illegal workers”.

Miami has it’s own distinct political flavor in this regard. Keep an eye on this area and the message being put out, when it comes time for the 2012 Presidential Election, what you see here could be the “deciding content” for the race.

The DREAM Act is listed here and defined further in Wikipedia here. It basically offers to help about 65,000 youth known as “illegal immigrants” to transition to the US citizenship they seek. It doesn’t cover much else on the face of it, and looks to be a form of political compromise that politicians can work into the media focus while they cut “back room deals” that will help them save face later if need be.

Since many of the politicians recently elected get to sit for a while, there’s not much risk in their game. They can get Sarah Palin elected in 2012, and if that happens, the whole issue will look quite different than it had after Obama first took office and promised reform within a year.

Here's a directory of immigration attorneys located throughout the United States.
If you need to do more in-depth research you can use our Law Firm Comparison Chart to see which firms we have researched that might best suit your needs.
If … [Read More...]